34th Toronto International Film Festival Coverage: Day Seven
So it’s now day seven of the Festival. The winding down continues and many of our U.S. counterparts are heading home after tonight’s events.
At every press conference there’s usually a question that makes the rest of the press roll their eyes and go “Did they really ask that?” At the Love and Other Impossible Pursuits press conference, a TV reporter asked Lisa Kudrow if she ever sang the “Smelly Cat” song from Friends in the shower. As the eyes rolled, Kudrow answered, “No. Do you?” to which the reporter responded in the affirmative. Entertainment journalism died a little at that point.
The press conference was followed by the Cooking with Stella première, where the reporters commented on the great spirits of actress Lisa Ray, whose currently battling cancer. The actress was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in June and began her treatments just two months before the Festival.
Cooking with Stella is about a Canadian diplomat (Ray) and her chef husband (Don McKellar) who get posted to New Delhi. While McKellar’s character gets lessons in authentic Indian cooking from their cook, Stella, it appears she’s been cooking up some money-making schemes on the side. McKellar, Ray, Shriya Saran, Seema Biswas and director Dilip Mehta all arrived at the screening in pedicabs.
We followed that with the première for Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Portman plays a new stepmother trying to create a relationship with her stepson while dealing with the boy’s mother, played by Kudrow. He film is directed by Don Roos, who has also written films like Single White Female and Boys on the Side.